The message came just after dawn.
Not from Phil. Not from Monica. Not even from George. It was from a private, encrypted line I didn’t recognize. No number, just a blinking dot and a two-word subject line:
"She's Alive."
I sat up in bed, heart racing. The Prague boarding pass still sat unopened on the nightstand, but this message pulled at something far deeper than Alric Voss or Project Octavian. My fingers trembled as I opened the file.
It wasn’t a message. It was a photo.
A woman in her mid-forties standing outside a train station in Geneva. She wore a cream shawl, loose silver curls falling past her shoulders. Her face wasn’t just familiar. It was my mother’s.
Or it should have been. Because my mother was dead.
The caption below read, "Geneva. 48 hours. She will meet you. Trust n
